


something so precious about this

by eversall



Category: The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-09 06:59:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4338482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eversall/pseuds/eversall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mansur is watching from his window the day Jean-Pierre rides back into town, all brash and wild.</p>
            </blockquote>





	something so precious about this

**Author's Note:**

> The Hundred Foot Journey was, to me, a very beautiful film. Because I am incorrigible, I really couldn't resist thinking that Jean-Pierre would come back. I apologize for any mistakes; I speak neither French nor Hindi, so everything is in English, though I'm sure in reality the Kadams probably end up speaking French and Hindi only after a few years. But it was an English film, so there you have it. Title is a line from the Hozier song From Eden.

Mansur is watching from his window the day Jean-Pierre rides back into town, all brash and wild. He watches as he begs, pleads with Madame Mallory, and as he is directed to Hassan and Marguerite. Marguerite looks disgusted but Hassan looks sympathetic. Mansur turns away because Hassan may forgive but Mansur does not forget.

.

When he was smaller, much smaller, he and Hassan and Mahira could all fit in Mama’s lap and Mama talked about the smells and souls and how to give to the world and not take too much back. Hassan and Mahira listened with wide eyes, but Mansur focused on Mama’s hands, the lines of her face, the sharp angles of her shoulders. He memorized Mama.

“What about people?” he had wanted to know. “Don’t people have the same taste of life in them?” And Mama had laughed and said _my darling child_ and told him that what he could not find in scents, yes, he could find in people.

Then, thirteen years later, in the alley behind the samosa cart, when no one was watching he and the samosa cart owner’s boy had licked their way into each other’s mouths and he could feel the life thrumming through every spit-slicked press of lips and tongue. _This could be the taste of life_ he thought dizzily. And it had been Mama who understood when he told her, shame-faced, a year later, and Mama who had worked on breaking the news to Papa gently, bit-by-bit, until Papa was laughingly threatening to hunt down the samosa cart boy for not marrying Mansur first. It is good. It is good.

Almost ten years pass before it is not good anymore; before, with the haunting smell of oil and camphor, Mama is gone, and then they are gone too.

.

He likes it in St. Antonin, surprisingly. He likes the moss-covered bridge and the crumbling stones. He likes the way that the people talk, in swishing French. And the way everything seems brighter, color leeching into the bright peppers in the market and overflowing into the apples and peaches. And the villagers – oh, the villagers! They are nothing like the loud, beautifully gaudy lines and angles Mansur is used to in Mumbai. They are not even the marbled planes and smooth shadows of the Englishman. The French are soft and glowing, faces curved but eyes and nose sharp. He sees it in the way Hassan and Marguerite stand together, a study in angles and curves, the way they complement each other.

In the way that Hassan thrives on the emotions of food, Mansur gets drunk off of the people and how they look. It is the secret to life, he thinks.

.

There are two bakeries in St. Antonin. One is very bland, in Mansur’s opinion. The other has pastries that appeal to his sweet tooth, so that is where he deigns to pick up bread for family meals as well.

It is not a pleasant surprise to walk in one day and see Jean-Pierre working behind the counter, baking and taking orders. Mansur remembers the harsh black lettering on the outer wall, turns around, and leaves the bakery. He will take bland bread over the feeling of angry lines.

.

When they were in England, Mansur worked at a very new, organic sort of café. Papa had not been too pleased that instead of traditional Indian food, he was serving espresso and learning latte art. Mansur had never minded; he works in kitchens because of the soothing quality of using his hands, not because he cares deeply about the food like his parents or Hassan.  

At the café, there were three baristas. One of them had stormy grey eyes and a smile that lit up streetlights at night. He was shorter than Mansur, so he asked for help getting the bags of coffee beans. After the tenth time he asked, Mansur put down the tenth bag next to the nine other unopened bags and slid his hands up the man’s shoulders. The smile tasted like cherries against his lips.

.

Mahira tries to get him to go out, down to the bar, to find someone. _The French,_ she tells him, _they are more open-minded about this sort of thing_.

Papa tries to get him to understand. _You are nearly thirty_ he says, _surely you want someone_.

Mama and Papa were married by the time they were twenty three. But Mansur has not yet found a man where he can taste something other than life. He is looking for something that he is not sure he wants to find.

.

Three times he goes to the bakery, sees Jean-Pierre, and walks out. The second and third times, he feels eyes burning into his back as he leaves. So the fourth time, he squares his shoulders and steps forward to the counter and orders chocolate croissants from Jean-Pierre.

 _You are afraid of me_ the other man smirks, and Mansur steadily stares the Frenchman down. He is taller than him.

 _Yes_ Mansur replies simply, because a boy who will set a restaurant on fire is a man who will look for redemption from ashes that Mansur has long since locked away in his heart. He is not sure he can take that without breaking.  

.

Hassan marries Marguerite in the spring, on the banks of the river where everyone knows the two sneak away to have picnics and fish and be happy. Mansur is the best man, and the Kadam family all wear their finest kurtas. Hassan looks confident and proud, and Mansur sees his baby brother’s hand’s settle into lines that are sturdy and strong. _Father’s hands_ Mansur thinks as Marguerite walks down the aisle in a filmy white dress, her eyes warm and protective even through the lace of her veil. _Mother’s eyes_ he thinks. They will make fine parents, he knows.

At the reception, a boy with golden hair shyly asks Mansur if it is true that further up the path, there are the most beautiful roses on all of St. Antonin. Mansur looks at the young boy who holds himself with the grace of swans and pulls him into the forest, where he tastes shame on the flat planes of the boy’s stomach and feels very, very old as the boy kisses him through tears.

.

He goes to the bar with Mahira one night. It is surprisingly delightful. Mahira goes to dance and he lets her move more sinuously than he thinks his sister should because she is young and wants to be noticed. Mansur plays cards with some of the other men his age and laughs uproariously as he and two of the others make a concerted effort to trick the fourth player, who good-naturedly takes it.

He goes to the counter to get another drink and sees the golden-haired boy serving them. His name is Charlie. His fingers tremble as he passes the drink to Mansur and whispers _thank you_. _For what_ Mansur wants to shout, because being with another man once is not the same thing as saying you will be with one when you get older, and he has seen the way Charlie’s best friend waits patiently for him.

Across the bar, someone is watching him with dark eyes. It is Jean-Pierre.

.

In August, the heat drips through the windows and down the cracks in the bricks. Mansur feels stifled and the lines around him seem to melt and droop in the sun. For the first time, he cannot appreciate the feel of the figures around him because it is too hot to concentrate.

He walks to the bakery one afternoon and orders the bread. Outside, he rests in an alleyway against the cool wall. Jean-Pierre steps out of the shadows, his eyes hungry and his mouth set in a sharp line. Mansur knows people. He knows what this is.

 _You are afraid of me_ he tells Jean-Pierre, and the stricken look on the other man’s face makes Mansur surge up and press their mouths together. He pours hate and anger and misery into it, the red welts of Hassan’s burns. Jean-Pierre, in turn, churns out jealousy with his tongue, maps the contours of Mansur’s mouth with the burning disgust he feels that Indians took the job he worked so hard to be good at.

 _You are unkind, I will never want you_ Mansur tells Jean-Pierre. _You are foolish and arrogant, I could never want you_ Jean-Pierre answers, and Mansur refrains from pointing out that while it is possible Jean-Pierre could never want him, it is apparent he does.

.

The next time he goes into the bakery, Jean-Pierre looks wrecked. His eyes skitter away. Mansur give his order and watches the lines of Jean-Pierre’s neck, the smooth white skin.

He thinks maybe he will order bland bread for a while.

.

Mansur meanders through town one day until he finds Charlie, at the bookstore. He takes Charlie aside and teaches him how to say _I like men. I like you._ How to say it without trembling, how to say it with heat in your eyes.

This is the first time Mansur has taught this lesson without using his tongue to convey meaning. This time, he uses broken French.

A day later, when he goes to the bar, there is the best friend perched on the stool as Charlie serves drinks. _To you_ the slightly older boy toasts Mansur, _for helping me find Charlie_.

 _Also,_ the boy adds, _Jean-Pierre is glaring at you_.

.

Mansur finally goes to Hassan. Asks about Jean-Pierre, about how he feels. It turns out, Hassan does not care. While making chicken tikka masala together, Hassan talks about forgiveness and pleading and how Jean-Pierre has done in both these respects.

The burns don’t show on Hassan’s hands. There are no scorch marks at the Maison Mumbai. Years of rain has washed away any remains of the graffiti on the outer wall. _Why do I still feel like death_? He asks Mahira. She looks up, dark eyes sad. _I don’t know_.

.

A few weeks of bland bread later, bread from the better bakery starts showing up at their doorstep every morning, free of charge. Papa harrumphs about charity, but he takes the bread without an ounce of guilt and tells Mansur to go to Jean-Pierre.

 _Did you know he helped me rebuild the chicken coops_? Papa asks. So apparently Jean-Pierre has asked for forgiveness from everyone and received it too. Mansur holds himself in anger, because Jean-Pierre has never asked him, he has never given anything, and yet the kiss they shared two months ago swirls across Mansur’s skin and is the only thing he has ever known that tastes like _home_.

.

Mansur goes to the bar again. Again, Jean-Pierre stares at him. He goes and sits at the Frenchman’s table.

 _You are afraid of me_. He repeats again, this time softly. 

 _Yes._  Jean-Pierre replies clearly. _And if I take you home tonight, I am risking everything on someone that wants to hurt me_.

Mansur does not know what he wants anymore except that he wants Jean-Pierre.

.

He learns that night. Jean-Pierre is vocal, painting the darkening sky with broken cries. He trails fingers down the broad expanses of milky white skin and watches the man shiver under him. He licks him down, sucks hard, watches through his eyelashes as Jean-Pierre drinks in the sight of Mansur greedily, so that if Mansur leaves tomorrow he will have something to remember in his heartbreak.

Mansur’s heart thumps irregularly when he is inside Jean-Pierre, and then Jean-Pierre mumbles something in French about the stars, panting heavily and scrabbling weakly at Mansur’s chest, his face, anything. He pauses a moment to smooth a hand over Jean-Pierre’s curls, which have come loose from his hair gel, and kisses him as greedily as Jean-Pierre stares, drinking in every last scrap of vulnerability he gets.

He fucks Jean-Pierre like he loves him. And when they collapse, hot and sticky and sated, Mansur gathers Jean-Pierre to his chest and presses kisses against his eyes and cheeks before falling asleep, because he has broken tonight under the man he wanted so desperately to break.

.

In the morning, Jean-Pierre barters. _A blowjob, and you will stay_. His chin juts out proudly, and Mansur knows that given enough time Jean-Pierre will return to a cocky bastard.

This time, he finds he does not care. Looks forward to days spent countering his teasing, shutting him up by fucking him, and learning the taste of home. Learning how to forget, because everyone else has forgiven. Learning how Jean-Pierre has changed from the boy who set a restaurant on fire to a man who looks for redemption from ashes that Mansur has long since locked away in his heart. Learning that it is not all bad to unlock the ashes and scatter them, the way they never got to scatter Mama on the Ganges.

 _Breakfast, and I will give the blowjob to you, and I will stay_ Mansur replies affectionately. Jean-Pierre’s answering smile tastes like cherries, tears, fire, home, and above all, dizzyingly like life.

             

    

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: now you can find me on [ tumblr!!! ](http://eversall.tumblr.com/) i know, you're SO excited *sarcasm*


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